Psychogenic non-epileptic spells are a form of conversion disorder which is characterized by “seizure like episodes” often misdiagnosed as epilepsy. These are frequently seen in adults with female predominance but occur also in children. The gold standard, for a definitive diagnosis, is inpatient video-EEG monitoring in a specialized epilepsy monitoring unit to capture these episodes. There is ...

We describe two patients with psychogenic seizures of rare semiology. Both patients (a 23-year-old man and a 26-year-old woman) attended the emergency department because status epilepticus with myoclonic seizures had been diagnosed. Seizures were documented with video-electroencephalography. Semiology of seizures were brief myoclonia of both arms resulting in a short elevation of both arms with...

The diagnosis of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures has become easier with the assimilation of studies on the clinical categorization of seizure-like events (1), video EEG monitoring (2), measurement of serum prolactin (3), the selective use of neuropsychological tests (4), and various other diagnostic methods. Much less information is available to the clinician on what to do next. How should th...

Various psychodynamic processes may underlie the development of psychogenic pain disorder such as conversion, the displacement of affect, or narcissistic defenses. However, many of the processes suggested are related to a disorder of affect regulation. The term affect regulation in psychoanalytic literature refers to phenomena which are often described by the concept of alexithymia. Empirical o...

BACKGROUND The pathophysiology of psychogenic movement disorders, including psychogenic tremor (PT), is only emerging. CASE REPORT This is a single case report of a patient who met diagnostic criteria for PT. He underwent positron emission tomography (PET) of brain with 18F-deoxyglucose at resting state. His PET study showed symmetrically increased 18F-deoxyglucose uptake in both posterior me...

Fifty nine patients admitted with a diagnosis of psychogenic vomiting were classified into five patterns of vomiting: continuous, habitual postprandial, irregular vomiting, nausea, and self induced. The psychiatric disorders related to the onset of vomiting were either a major depression or a conversion disorder. Continuous vomiting was usually due to a conversion disorder, while in many cases ...

A twenty-eight-year-old woman with an eight-year history of partial hearing loss presented with a two-year history of worsening deafness and new-onset seizures. Evaluations of tympanic membranes, cochlea, and auditory brain stem reflexes demonstrated no physiologic basis for deafness. Video-EEG monitoring demonstrated that the patient responded normally to spontaneous auditory stimuli and that ...

Palatal tremor is a rare movement disorder characterized by rhythmic contractions of the soft palate. It is most often symptomatic, secondary to brainstem or cerebellar disease and, in rarer cases, is categorized as essential in the absence of documented brain lesions. There have also been reports in the literature of cases of palatal tremor described as psychogenic because they were associated...

A controlled study of 30 children with recurrent abdominal pain and 30 pain free children failed to show any statistically significant differences between the groups on a variety of psychological variables thought to be associated with psychogenicity. A psychogenic basis has often been assumed as the cause in diagnosis of recurrent abdominal pain when clinical examination and laboratory tests s...